After many years of being off the air, I am planning become active once again. At present, I live in BA4-land and will return to my old call area of New England in early 2012. We are in the process of having a house built. I know that I want a yagi for 5 bands. I want a crank up tilt over tower (possibly motorized) as I am 60 now and do not want to be climbing towers as I try to enjoy this hobby in my forthcoming (several years hence) retirement.

I posted already on Antennas and Towers to get suggestions on those issues.

I would appreciate any thoughts that any of you who have experience undertaking such a project would have. In particular, what should I do right away during the house construction phase (if anything) to make station building easier later? What books would people recommend I consult?

Given that I do not plan to participate in contests but simply to try to work some DX and also rag chewing (HF), what construction suggestions - conduits, grounds, cable access, power etc etc to set up the station infrastructure? What about equipment? I realize that is wide open question but would like some opinions on what to think about - for example ease of operation, pc operated or not, number of receivers, filters, etc etc There ar just so many questions I have difficult to know where to start. Any ideas thoughts, suggestions, would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

Hello. My few suggestions are: (1) a 240v line to the shack; (2) several discrete 120v lines to the shack; (3) a "dryer vent" or something similar for coax ingress and/or ladder line; (4) a PVC conduit from your attic to the basement, to facilitate future potential runs of coax; (5) some sort of roof vent to make routing coax from your attic to your roof easy; (6) before having your yard seeded or turf put in, spend an easy weekend installing radials on top of the soil for a future vertical antenna; and (7) pre-seeding/pre-turf, bury a conduit for coax to the base of where your tower is going to be...and consider whether to bury a conduit under where your driveway is going to go.

I did everything backwards, as an afterthought. Next time, I'll do some planning in advance, which will make everything much easier and much cheaper.

After many years of being off the air, I am planning become active once again. At present, I live in BA4-land and will return to my old call area of New England in early 2012. We are in the process of having a house built. I know that I want a yagi for 5 bands. I want a crank up tilt over tower (possibly motorized) as I am 60 now and do not want to be climbing towers as I try to enjoy this hobby in my forthcoming (several years hence) retirement.

I posted already on Antennas and Towers to get suggestions on those issues.

I would appreciate any thoughts that any of you who have experience undertaking such a project would have. In particular, what should I do right away during the house construction phase (if anything) to make station building easier later? What books would people recommend I consult?

Given that I do not plan to participate in contests but simply to try to work some DX and also rag chewing (HF), what construction suggestions - conduits, grounds, cable access, power etc etc to set up the station infrastructure? What about equipment? I realize that is wide open question but would like some opinions on what to think about - for example ease of operation, pc operated or not, number of receivers, filters, etc etc There ar just so many questions I have difficult to know where to start. Any ideas thoughts, suggestions, would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

If you plan on having roof mounted antennas, easy access to the roof would be nice. Will you have a room dedicated to be your shack? Would you also want a set up in your bedroom? Your equipment choices will also depend a lot on your budget. If money is no object, why not go all out and get the top of the line? Hell, you probably worked really hard and deserve it!

Building a new house, A reinforced POURED concrete basement is a must have. When they pour the concrete footings, Have them run the rebar out so you can bond your ground system to it. This is called a "UFer" ground, And is a great way to obtain a really good ground for close to no extra cost. http://www.psihq.com/iread/ufergrnd.htm

Do bond all grounds together. The suggestion for a dryer vent to run feedlines inside is a great idea.

A tower is the best way to mount antennas. For lots of reasons. Including not messing with the brand new roof shingles, A tower is a good place to divert lightning strikes to instead of the house, etc.

For tips on how to install good lightning protection on a low budget see:

Three EASY answers:ICOM 7800,MOSLEY PRO-96S,& a US TOWER of your desired height.That will take care of MOST anything other than a rotor & there are SEVERAL "GREAT" choices that will turn that MONSTER "MOSLEY PRO-96S so have FUN! What more could a MAN want?

Building a new house, A reinforced POURED concrete basement is a must have. When they pour the concrete footings, Have them run the rebar out so you can bond your ground system to it. This is called a "UFer" ground, And is a great way to obtain a really good ground for close to no extra cost. http://www.psihq.com/iread/ufergrnd.htm

Do bond all grounds together. The suggestion for a dryer vent to run feedlines inside is a great idea.

A tower is the best way to mount antennas. For lots of reasons. Including not messing with the brand new roof shingles, A tower is a good place to divert lightning strikes to instead of the house, etc.

For tips on how to install good lightning protection on a low budget see:

Do your homework and read a lot about grounding and lightning protection before you decide how to do things, there is a lot of misconceptions about grounding amongst hams that could cost you your rig or/and the house when the lightning strikes.

Have a 1/2 bath installed outside of the shack door. Or better yet, inside some where. Get yerself a small frige too.

klc

Good point on plumbing. As long as your proposed hamshack is fairly close to other plumbing, It is a simple, low cost thing to add a half bath. Adding or changing plumbing AFTER the home design is finished is not easy or cheap!

Two things I can think of off hand. One would be a dedicated cable entry/run to where you think you may put your 'shack'. The other thing would be an extensive (as in large) ground system centered around your tower, or just any/every where you can get it into the ground. That'd save a lot of effort later, and they'll be tearing up the yard anyway, right?Don't know about you, but I find it very easy to run out of power outlets! Typically, even a bunch of them aren't gonna be enough, you know? (As was said, add that 240vac line while you're at it.)Can you remember anything you wish you'd had when you were into the hobby before? So why not now? - Paul

One thing I would do is to run a 220 feed out to an auxiliary electrical breaker panel in the shack. Put a master disconnect switch at the door to the shack so that the entire shack (except possibly an overhead light) is disconnected from the AC mains when the shack is not in use.

Another advantage to this is if you have grandkids--you wouldn't have a worry of them 'accidently' using your equipment.

A dryer vent is also a good idea--unless you're going to run your coax cables into the basement then into the shack and use a more industrialized approach to getting them in.

Although there is no need to kill all power, it is still an idea if you like to make sure that nothing is going to happen when the station is unsupervised. That goes if there are any grandkids around--or just pets! If you have pets, how many times have kitty kitty or dumb dawg knocked over things in your house?

Not everyone has 24/7 nodes or repeater type radios in their shacks, or the need to have computers on 24/7 either. Some people are just more comfortable knowing that the shack equipment is totally unpowered when they're not there.

Finally, there is no need to leave a computer on 24/7. The power draw is high, and the thought that the computer will last longer if it is left on all the time is just so much baloney. Computers hooked up with a good, properly functioning UPS supplying power will last just as long if not longer if they're switched off when they're not going to be in use for a while.

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